Aikido USA- Worst Dojo in the History of the World

I was employed here for 8 months teaching children and adult Jujitsu classes. There were 3 other sensei, all teaching Aikido. One of which was a 6th kyu, the other two claimed to be second dan, but it was apparent by their poor and often dangerous teaching technique that they had only read a few books about aikido. They kept no records of payments and arbitrarily changed the monthly fee. They never cleaned the mats or the facility.

I started an MMA program here, employing another instructor who was EXTREMELY experienced and knowledgeable. They canceled this after a very short time because they did not want to upgrade insurance, even though the MMA program was bringing in a lot of people.

Testing requirements were insanely simple, each rank consisting of 4 or 5 techniques. The average age for the "black belt" students was 12, many of which only trained for about 6 months.

There was very little equipment. There were two heavy bags, two sets of sparring gear, some bokken and shinai, and some freeweights and kettlebells which I brought in and owned, so when I left I took them all. Now, it is basically a room with mats and nothing else. Uniforms were bought from a local store and sold for greatly inflated price.

I do not reccomend this dojo for anyone who is remotely serious about traditional martial arts. It is cheap, which is about the only positive I can think of.

Wait a minute, how did you end up teaching at such a bad place? Did you interview? Were you suddenly surprised by the suckage? Are you a competent instructor? This review sounds like sour grapes. The grapes may suck anyway, but you sound like you have other issues. Please give more background.

to mike

Well, here is a little more background about the situation.

I was previously running the martial arts programs at the YMCA and I met the director of Aikido USA through that, because they ran a few classes at a community center we worked with. At this point, the dojo which this thread is about didn't exist. When they started the dojo, they asked me to come and work there very early on, as it was only a few months old. Of course, me being young and brash, I left the Y because the idea of a small private school seemed much more appealing. At first, I attributed the "suckage" to the fact that it was new. I also had very little contact with the other instructors and I was free to run my classes the way I wanted to, which was nice. I like to think that I am a competent instructor. I've been training for almost 15 years now and I have been teaching for 5. I left Aikido USA after 8 months. The reason I stayed was that I was naive enough to think that it would improve, but the poor management prevented that. It seems pretty commonplace in dojos now adays that the martial arts are undermined by the whole business aspect of it. My opinion of the dojo may be a result of the animosity I have towards them, nevertheless my experience training in a variety of schools around the world give me a good idea of how poor Aikido USA really was run and maintained. I still would not reccomend it to anyone who is interested in a comprehensive martial arts program. If you want to get a black belt in 6 months and a few hundred dollars, then by all means I reccomend Aikido USA. If you go that route, just try not to get into a real fight.